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Lucid Group and Panasonic Energy announced they have entered into multi-year agreements that entail the latter supplying lithium-ion batteries to both the Lucid Air and Gravity SUV. Part of the agreement supports Panasonic Energy’s plans to expand outside of Japan and begin production at a new facility in the US.

Lucid Group ($LCID) continues to try and do everything it can to expand its customer base and scale its EV lineup. Since beginning production in Arizona last year, the luxury EV automaker has delivered over 1,400 versions of its flagship Air sedan, including the latest Touring trim.

The Pure version of the Air will follow as well as a highly anticipated tri-motor Sapphire – an EV whose speed alone could shut some of its critics up… at least for a while. Not to be outdone, Lucid Motors has been teasing more peeks at its next EV – an SUV called Gravity.

The next Lucid Air and Gravity EVs will soon feature lithium batteries from Panasonic Energy Co., Ltd., a division of Panasonic Group formed this past April as the company looks to bring production to the US.

Lucid batteries
A rendering of Panasonic’s upcoming facility in De Soto, Kansas / Source: Panasonic

Lucid and Panasonic Energy sign agreement for batteries

Lucid Group shared details of its new multi-year agreements for batteries in a press release today. To begin, Lucid EV’s will receive batteries manufactured by Panasonic at its current footprint in Japan. However, future cells will come from the energy company’s upcoming facility in Kansas, which just broke ground in November.

It is there that the company intends to further ramp up 2170 cell production and support its Japanese facilities in developing and producing 4680 cells for automakers like Tesla. With today’s announcement, Lucid Motors joins that rolodex for batteries. Panasonic Energy president and CEO Kazuo Tadanobu spoke:

With the increased electrification of the automotive market, partnerships with technology-leading EV manufacturers such as Lucid are critical to our mission. This partnership will help us drive growth of the lithium-ion battery industry and accelerate the world towards a net-zero emissions future.

Lucid Motors expects to reach a full ramp-up of all Air models by 2023 while it expands its AMP-1 production facility in Arizona to support Gravity production. Those electric SUVs are expected to follow in 2024, but may feature Panasonic batteries from Japan at first.

Panasonic doesn’t expect to begin mass production in the US until 2025, but when complete, the company is anticipating an annual total production capacity of 30 GWh to supply US EV manufacturers like Lucid with lithium batteries.

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Tesla (TSLA) releases Q2 2025 financing results: earnings down 23%

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Tesla (TSLA) releases Q2 2025 financing results: earnings down 23%

Tesla (TSLA) released its financial results and shareholders’ letter for the second quarter (Q2) 2025 after market close today.

We are updating this post with all the details from the financial results, shareholders’ letter, and the conference call later tonight. Refresh for the latest information.

Tesla Q2 2025 earnings expectations

As we reported in our Tesla Q2 2025 earnings preview yesterday, the Wall Street consensus for this quarter was $22.279 billion in revenue and earnings of $0.40 per share.

The expectations had been significantly downgraded over the last month, as analysts were surprised by Tesla’s announcement of much lower deliveries than expected in the first quarter.

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How did Tesla do compared to expectations?

Tesla Q2 2025 financial results

After the market closed today, Tesla released its financial results for the first quarter and confirmed that it delivered on expectations with earnings of $0.40 per share (non-GAAP), and it exceeded revenue expectations with $22.496 billion during the last quarter.

Tesla’s earnings per share are down 23% year-over-year amid a booming EV market.

Operating income decreased 42% year-over-year to now less than $1 billion, and almost half of it came from regulatory credits.

Tesla’s cash on hand has decreased this quarter for the first time in years. The company lost about $200 million of its giant war chest – now sitting at $36.8 billion.

We will be posting our follow-up posts here about the earnings and conference call to expand on the most important points (refresh the page to see the most recent posts):

Here’s Tesla’s Q2 2025 shareholder presentation in full:

Here’s Tesla’s conference call for the Q2 2025 results:

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Tesla teleoperated robot failed while serving popcorn on first day of new diner

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Tesla teleoperated robot failed while serving popcorn on first day of new diner

Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot, which CEO Elon Musk claims is ahead of the industry and will sell in the trillions of dollars, failed while serving popcorn on the first day of Tesla’s new diner launch.

Musk has been touting Optimus as a revolutionary product that will generate “trillions of dollars” per year for Tesla.

It’s the latest pivot that the CEO has led Tesla into, as electric vehicle sales are declining, and it is becoming increasingly clear that its self-driving effort is unlikely to be profitable anytime soon.

The company needs new revenue streams to justify a $1 trillion valuation, given its declining revenue and earnings.

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However, we have been reporting on how the program appears to be in shambles lately.

Last month, Tesla’s head of the program, Milan Kovac, left the company just a few months after being promoted to vice-president.

Earlier this month, we learned that Tesla paused production to perform some much-needed upgrades to the current version of the robot, as it is reportedly currently only able to move some batteries within Tesla’s workshop at a rate lower than that of human workers.

That’s despite Tesla claiming for months that the robot is already performing useful work within its factories and plans to ramp up production to 100,000 units per month next year, with the goal of starting to sell the robot.

Aside from gullible Tesla shareholders, not many people believe this narrative. The main issue is that Tesla is not seen as having a lead in humanoid robots, which is still a nascent industry, and its previous demonstrations have been misleading.

For example, Tesla was less than forthcoming about its robots being teleoperated by humans during its ‘We, Robot’ event last year.

The launch of its new diner in Los Angeles was the latest occasion to showcase Optimus. Tesla had an Optimus robot serve popcorn to customers.

Again, Tesla employees at the event confirmed to attendees that the robot was teleoperated, which makes the demonstration unimpressive to start with, but the disappointment doesn’t stop there.

The robot was seen frozen and stopped operating during the first day of the Tesla diner launch.

Attendees were told that the robot lost connection.

Electrek’s Take

To be clear, Tesla can only get the Optimus robot to serve popcorn for a short period before it fails, even with the use of human teleoperation.

Yet, Musk claims that Tesla will make 100,000 of these next year and sell them to customers.

It makes no sense. It’s similar to Tesla’s robotaxi service in Austin, which requires teleoperation and a human safety monitor with a finger on a kill switch at all times.

That said, I honestly believe that Tesla will be able to scale Optimus faster than its robotaxi service. However, they will both scale much slower than Tesla shareholders currently believe and the competition is already ahead of both.

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Meet the BYD Atto 1 — A $12,000 EV for the masses

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Meet the BYD Atto 1 — A ,000 EV for the masses

BYD officially launched the Atto 1 in Indonesia on Wednesday. Starting at just $12,000 (IDR 195 million), the Atto 1 is now one of the most affordable EVs on the market.

BYD launches the Atto 1 entry-level EV

The Atto 1 is a rebadged version of BYD’s top-selling electric car in China, the Seagull EV. BYD’s smallest and most affordable EV is sold under the names Dolphin Mini and Dolphin Surf in other overseas markets.

BYD introduced the Atto 1 at the Gaikindo Indonesia International Auto Show (GIIAS) on Wednesday, priced from IDR 195 million, or about $12,000.

The new entry-level EV is available in two trims: Standard Range Dynamic and Long Range Premium. Powered by a 30.08 kWh BYD Blade battery, the standard range Atto 1 Dynamic offers a NEDC range of 300 km (186 miles).

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Upgrading to the Premium model costs IDR 235 million ($14,500), but it’s equipped with a bigger 38.88 kWh battery, providing an NEDC range of 380 km (236 miles).

BYD-Atto-1-EV
BYD Atto 1 EV (Source: BYD Indonesia)

The interior resembles that of other BYD brand vehicles, featuring a minimalist, high-tech smart cockpit. It features a 10.1″ intelligent touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as a 7″ digital driver’s instrument display.

Meanwhile, the Long Range Premium version comes with an added wireless charging pad and a tilt-and-telescopic steering wheel.

BYD-Atto-1-EV
BYD Atto 1 interior (Source: BYD Indonesia)

At 3,959 mm long, 1,720 mm wide, and 1,590 mm tall, the Atto 1 is smaller than a Toyota Yaris, but slightly bigger than the Kia Picanto.

“This launch in Indonesia marks the first release of the Atto 1 in ASEAN, and the car is now available for pre-order,” BYD Indonesia’s operations director, Nathan Sun, said at the event.

BYD-Atto-1-EV

The Atto 1 is BYD’s third electric vehicle to arrive in Indonesia, and the brand’s most affordable yet. BYD also sells the Seal, starting at IDR 629 million, Atto 3 SUV (IDR 515 million), and Dolphin (IDR 425 million).

Indonesia is the largest auto market in Southeast Asia, and EV sales are picking up with new government policies supporting local production. In the first half of the year, the EV market share doubled to 10% from 5% in the same period last year.

Earlier today, Toyota, which controls around 30% of the Indonesian auto market, announced plans to begin building EVs locally by the end of 2025.

Source: JakartaGlobe, BYD Indonesia

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